Sands and Darkness
by Optimistic Semi-Goth
Summary: Raven has infected her teammates with an uncurable virus and must now ask assistance from Anubis, the Egyptian god.
1. To Make Suffering Right

_An intro from Optimistic Semi-Goth:  
Yeah, it's my first fiction here. Rejoice. it's a fiction about Raven... and Anubis. Yeah, the Egyptian god. Why? 'Cause I like Egypt and Anubis is cool. So... yeah.  
I don't have Word yet. I'm so special. So, Notepad's all I have.  
I do not own Teen Titans. I do not own Anubis. How the heck could I own an Egyptian god anyways?_

* * *

**1**

**To Make Suffering Right**

Sand. It surrounded her. A kiloton or more of shifting specks, pale and ghostly in the moonlight. She wished she didn't have to be here, wished she didn't have to wait for a response to her mind's plea. She just wished that she didn't have to be so immune to the sickness that afflicted her team.

Raven looked up, wind whipping her deep purple hair into her eyes. She had caught a sickness, but her demon half was immune to it. But she wasn't immune to spreading disease. Now her friends were on their deathbed. It was her fault, so she had to find a way to reverse it. If only it wasn't as impossible. If only she didn't have to involve a god.

Sand stung the telekinetic's eyes. Raven looked away, wiping the sand from her eyes. She opened her eyes slowly and was about to turn back, to keep walking, but to her right she glanced a black jackal's head rising over the sand. Beneath the head was a man's body, skin as black as the canine that his head was shaped as. His clothing included a cloth around his waist and golden bands on his arms. His eyes were as black as the star-coated sky above. A grim expression came over his face as he saw Raven. Anubis was his name and he would know if the Titans would die. He would know how to stop their deaths. He would know what to do with Raven after she told him what she had done.

"Why have you requested my assistance in this manner?" Anubis asked, dark eyes staring down at Raven.

"I... gave my friends a terrible illness," Raven said nervously, not knowing how the god would react. "They're dying, and I thought you would know how to stop it."

Anubis shook his head, sighing. "Do you think it is unlike the typical mortal to wish their friends out of death's way? I cannot save one, for then I would have to save you all. It would be wrong as well to stop time from progressing, to stop death from happening."

"It's my fault," Raven said softly. "I have to save them because it's my fault.

Anubis's grim expression turned into a glare. "Raven, you cannot save them with my help. I know you have abilities that go against what I have said. You can stop time, as you have in the past. You have ended and restored the world. This does not mean that these feats are acceptable. You cannot change fate. You cannot stop death. I cannot help you make suffering right."

Raven looked away from the jackal-headed god and began to walk off. Sand whipped Raven's face, stinging her eyes. Her head turned and Anubis was beside her once more. The god looked like he was dreading what he had to say next. He sighed before speaking.

"But," Anubis spoke slowly. "If you can save them on your own by the time forty-eight hours passes... they will survive."

"What if I can't save them?" Raven asked desperately, dreading Anubis's response.

"Then your friends shall die."

Anubis turned from the telekinetic and walked away, the sands soon whipping around his muscular build. The pale, moon-struck dust surrounded him as he strode further and further away from Raven, and it eventually covered his entire body. Suddenly, the sand exploded in all directions, leaving no one and no trace but memories.

Raven closed her eyes and felt the sand leave her feet, the cool desert wind stop blowing, and the grating grains in her eyes soon vanish. She was floating in a void the color of the night sky with no north star to lead her home, simply instincts. And the darkness soon melted, the midnight tendrils leaking off of the walls of Raven's own room. She could not leave this place. She could not see her friends' dying bodies.

Raven searched her walls for any and all books with medicinal information. Pulling the heavy volumes out one by one, Raven prepared to search for a way to save her friend's lives. Raven prepared to search for a way to change fate, to stop death, to make suffering right.

Raven opened the first book and immediately found nothing. Nothing that would help her - the first page she turned to stated what Raven had been dreading. The second book she opened showed no different results. The third hailed no new information. The fourth all the way to the twenty-second all gave the same depressing statement:

"This virus has no known cure."

* * *

_And there's the oh-so-happy end to a rather short chapter. Don't worry, as the ideas get longer, so will the chapters. Anubis is probably going to pop in every other chapter or so._


	2. One Hope

_An intro from Optimistic Semi-Goth:  
Let's make things interesting. What will Raven do now that there is no known cure and limited time for the Titans to survive? Ooh, happy fun time.  
Still don't have word. Just notepad. Whee.  
I do not own Teen Titans or Anubis and I have no idea what the virus is. Yeah._

* * *

**2**

**One Hope**

Raven muttered several intricately arranged curses as she slammed the last book shut. There had to be a way to save the Titans. They couldn't die. Two days. She had less than two days. Anubis had told her that. But how much time had she spent searching through books? How much time remained before all that she was trying to save vanished?

Raven took a deep breath and centered herself, levitating above her bed. She opened her eyes to find herself not in the sands where she met Anubis, but standing before an oasis. Raven wondered if she could carry anything between realms, as everything she would find here had a chance of becoming intangible in her world. Everything she would find here was a remnant of the past. Everything was merely a spirit. Everything was dead.

As Raven realized this, she wondered if this was the world that her friends would go to in two days. She shook her head before entering the oasis. This was where she would go if she couldn't take it. This was Raven's grave.

_If they die_, Raven thought.

But Raven couldn't believe that they wouldn't. The other Titans had an virus proclaimed incurable by at least thirty different doctors and the only thing that Raven could do would be to mix a potion that probably wouldn't work.

But as Raven stepped into the jungle, she noticed a patch of light, a clearing. A field of pale blue flowers. The dew on them reflected the silver shine of the moon, creating an abrupt silver-coated patch of blue in a damp green jungle; a silver-coated patch of hope. Raven pulled a single flower from the ground, wincing with pain. Releasing her grip and holding the flower in her palm, Raven noticed the hundreds of minuscule thorns that coated the square stem. The empath pulled a thorn out, holding out a bowl-like leaf beneath the flower. A rush of vile brownish green liquid flowed out of the new hole in the stem, withering the flower's long blue petals.

Raven continued through the jungle, finding that the most vile-looking of plants would be the best of ingredients as she took the fifth foul-smelling fruit and squeezed out the dark red juice into the leaf-cup that now consisted of swirling amethyst and brown. Raven then took the thorn she had saved from the original flower. Raven looked down at the cup before deciding that a little demon blood wouldn't hurt the potion at all.

After stirring the completed potion, Raven stepped outside of the oasis once more, standing in her starting point. The telekinetic closed her indigo eyes, sending herself into the starless night once more. But as midnight released its hold on Raven's room once more, the leaf and its contents began to fade. The telekinetic raced out of her room for the first time in a long time. She knew what to do.

The smell of sickness reached Raven's nose at the first step past her door. Raven closed her eyes and ran to the stairs. As she passed by each of her friend's rooms, the smell became more vivid, more terrible. And yet, each had a different smell. Beast Boy's room smelled of carrion as Raven passed. Cyborg's smelled of rusted blood. Starfire's room smelled of acid and turpentine. And Robin's room simply smelled of human sickness, but so strongly that Raven gagged. Finally, Raven came to the entrance to the stairs, her tears begging to come.

Raven would not let her tears come until she pulled a cup from the cabinet in the operations center and dumped the vile potion unceremoniously inside. Raven choked on her fear before she began crying. The feel of the hallway, the smell of sickness, and the wheezing she heard every other second, the choking sounds that slowly sped up until it matched Raven's heartbeat. This was why she hadn't come out of her room for a day. Raven grabbed four glasses of water before exiting the room.

Raven entered the nearest room: Robin's. She had almost not wanted to enter from what she had felt outside the room, but she had to. Robin looked at his friend strangely as she handed him the glass.

"Drink it," Raven said quietly but demandingly. "Now."

Robin drank the water and was about to thank his friend when he saw that she had left. Raven entered the other rooms in the same near-silent fashion, demanding that they drink what she was giving them before exiting as quickly as possible. After she left Beast Boy's room, Raven reminded herself to help her friends more, to hide her fear. They needed her now. Raven looked down at the amethyst liquid in the cup she held. Did they need this now, too?

Raven came closer to the turpentine smell of Starfire's room. If the resilient Tamaranian couldn't handle her potion, she was out of luck. Raven slowly opened the door, revealing Starfire laying on her bed, looking quite pale.

"Raven?" Starfire choked out, barely able to speak. "What are you doing here once again?"

"Where's the glass I gave you?" Raven whispered.

Starfire didn't speak. Raven came closer, seeing the glinting object still in the Tamaranian's pale orange hand. The telekinetic tipped her own glass slightly, dripping but two drops of the rancid-smelling fluid into the remaining water.

"Starfire," Raven said, getting the alien to lift her head, "I want you to drink that. I'll leave you alone, but then later I'll come back and ask you how you're feeling. Got it?"

Starfire gave what Raven took to be a nod. The empath left the room and only took three steps before she heard the Tamaranian choking. Raven thought at first that Starfire found the taste displeasing or had swallowed too quickly. But the sound never ceased. Raven spun around on the spot and ran back to Starfire's room. The door flew open at Raven's touch and Starfire was seen lying on her bed, unable to breathe. Raven ran to the kitchen and returned to Starfire with a fresh glass of water. The water was soon forced down Starfire's throat and the potion was washed away.

Raven couldn't believe it. Her one hope at saving her friends would just make them worse.

* * *

_I totally made up the plants in the story. Hey, it was in another dimension. So... yeah._


End file.
